GURPS Fantasy Warriors Session 3: Battle of the Sunstone Bridge

Characters:

Granmarg The Striking Vanguard, The Boulderstruck, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate
Pomegranite The Treefallen, The Spymaster

Mielikki The Field Marshal, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate

Thicket The Grandmaster Terramorpher, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate

Preparations

The armies of the earthlings arrived at the old bridge spanning the Sunstone River, and saw the force from Lumene encamped on the hill on the far bank, still within their own lands.  The bridge had been built in either the first or second empire, which made it at least a milennium old, and was a massive construction of brick.  There were some smaller bridges dotted up and down the river, but none wide enough to march an army across.  The earthlings could demolish it given enough time for their terramorphers to work, but it seemed likely that Lumene would attack if they did.

Despite Granmarg urging to attack immediately, a messenger was sent forth under a green flag, signaling that the earthlings wished to negotiate, and he was welcomed into the camp of Lumene.  Several minutes later, he returned and took a knee in front of the Triumvirate to deliver their response: Queen Edelina was requesting the surrender and conversion to worship of Astraeus of the earthlings, or else she would be "forced" to attack.

That meant war.  The earthlings settled in to a camp, and the two forces began drawing up battle plans and spying on the other as best they could.  Thicket used his skills as an administrator to rapidly bring up extra troops to the front line, while Pomegranite was able to infiltrate the enemy camp and bribed some officers in charge of signaling orders.  Mielikki and Granmarg both observed the enemy defenses but gained no insights.

GURPS Fantasy Warriors Session 2: Escape From Kaskorata

Characters:

Granmarg The Striking Vanguard, The Boulderstruck, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate
Pomegranite The Treefallen, The Spymaster

Mielikki The Field Marshal, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate

Thicket The Grandmaster Terramorpher, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate

Breakout

Having just returned to the dining hall when Ulrich made his declaration that they would elect him Emperor or die, Mielikki took a look around to see who was still there.  They'd passed the dwarves going the other way in the hallway, obviously, and most of the other delegations had filtered either out onto the veranda overlooking the waterfall, or to the ballroom.  The only ones present were the delegation from the Imperial College, Eremon of Lumene, and the Court Magister of Wrost, Nikolai.

Granmarg rushed across the room and leapt over a table in a burst of lightning, while the rest of the triumvirate readied their improvised weapons and ran toward the stone wall that Thicket was planning to open with his earth magic.  Though they were disarmed, they had little trouble dispatching the Knights of the Blazing Sun, and Eremon and the Magisters joined in; Eremon disintegrated a pair in a pillar of fire, while Eva cut one into pieces in a net of void magic.  The Magister none of them recognized picked up a fork.

The melee with the Knights continued until Thicket made it to the wall and, after asking the stones politely, the bricks moved aside and created an opening to the hallway.  Bramble was the first one through, followed by Vasili, Eva, and then Thicket. The unknown Magister failed a spell and attempted to stab a Knight with the fork, but it barely even scratched the plate armor.  Garmnrag, Pomegranite, and Mielikki finished clearing out their side of the room, and Granmarg punched out the only Knight on his side, leaving only the one by the other Magister still standing.

GURPS Fantasy Warriors Session 1: The Great Court

Characters:

Granmarg The Striking Vanguard, The Boulderstruck, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate
Pomegranite The Treefallen, The Spymaster

Mielikki The Field Marshal, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate

Thicket The Grandmaster Terramorpher, Member of the Earthling Triumvirate

Selection

The Games, held every 10 years, determined who among the earthlings, a people composed of earth and plantlife, were most suited to hold various posts and titles.  Of particular prestige were the posts of the Triumvirate, the three great leaders of their people who together held their single elector vote in the Empire.  The Game to become the Striking Vanguard, their greatest martial champion, took place over many weeks, and at long last Granmarg, also known as the Boulderstruck, emerged victorious and took his seat on the Triumvirate.  

Mielikki, meanwhile, won the mock battles that would determine the Field Marshal quite handily, as he had been exposed to wargames in his time as a diplomat in the Dwarven Undersands to the south, and the dwarves were much more advanced in their theories of war than anything the earthlings had.  Thicket took the last position, the Grandmaster Terramorpher, by creating the most detailed map of their province, The Highland Forests, down to counting every last tree in the land.

A fourth title, though not quite as prestigious as it was not part of the Triumvirate, was the Spymaster, won by the diminutive Pomegranite The Treefallen.  His time at the Imperial College, where he had studied the Path of Secrets, had lent itself well to the challenge of learning the secrets of the other competitors while concealing his own from any watchful eyes.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 34: Riding Off Into the Moonset

Characters:

Pat "The Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

Buntaro "Flex" Tanaka - Replacement Solo

Shutdown

Flex continued brawling with the surviving Molecule Smasher, slowly wearing away at the armour on its one remaining arm, while The Peacock landed an aimed shot to the sensors on the "skull" only for the bullet to ricochet harmlessly off of the protective diamond lenses.  Jar hefted the HMG he'd cut off the deceased Smasher and the ensuing wild spray caught the mechanical monster in the torso a few times with high-caliber rounds that seemed able to wound, but not to kill.

Paxos hacked into Smasher's systems and turned off the "super sandevistan" on its spine before it could ramp up to full heat, succeeding at the hack the exact moment that a pair of cooling vents opened on its back.  Noticing the electronic threat, Smasher turned and a panel fell away from its chest as it fired an incendiary grenade at the back of the cabin; the entire crew but Flex were set aflame, and while Jar was able to ignore it with his armoured skin, Paxos and The Peacock dropped and started rolling.

Despite the sandevistan being shut down, it was clear that Smasher's reaction time was still increasing, as it effortlessly batted away the next pair of strikes from Flex, then forced him back with a devastating right hook that he barely managed to parry in time.  Though Jar was fine, the HMG didn't like being on fire and jammed, but after a quick smack it was back to firing full-auto while making some concerning noises.  With another quick hack from Paxos to shut down one of Smasher's legs, the sustained fire was enough to drive him down to the floor, sparking.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 33: Beginning of the End

Characters:

Pat "The Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

Buntaro "Flex" Tanaka - Replacement Solo

Final Preparations

Before anyone else could board, Jar popped open a locked maintenance hatch in the ceiling of the cargo hatch, and took a look around the cabin; the hatch came out in the kitchen, which looked out into the main seating area where a meeting table took up half the length, but there were too many cameras in for Paxos to deal with them all at once, so he retreated back to the hatch and sat tight with everyone else.  Within twenty minutes, they heard a loud bang outside and the main hatch to the outside slid open to reveal a spiderlike luggage drone sliding up a ramp that had mated to the outside of the hull.

Paxos quickly hacked it to ignore them, and it dutifully placed Yorinobu's things, including two refrigerated crates which were connected to the kitchen above via dumbwaiter.  As the drone worked, the ship shook as the passenger gondola attached to the cabin above them and crew began to board.  The luggage drone retreated to the ramp and the exterior hatch slid shut, and soon enough the crew were pressed down into the hard metal floor as a dull roar reverberated through the ship from the engines and they took flight.

Within a few minutes they were out of the atmosphere and into zero-g.  Jar couldn't handle being in space very well and lost his lunch, and Flex was looking a little green, but Paxos and The Peacock were unbothered.  After doing their best to clean up the floating vomit, the crew settled in and waited for food to start moving up the dumbwaiter.  The plan was for Flex to burst through the door to the meeting room with his mantis blades out while everyone was busy eating their fancy bento boxes (or whatever rich people ate on a private suborbital).

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 32: One Last Job

Characters:

Pat "The Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

Buntaro "Flex" Tanaka - Replacement Solo

The Calm Before The Storm

The crew jumped out of the traincar as the doors were closing, and The Peacock took a look at the assailant Flex had decapitated.  They had a burner agent, but they had left it connected to their implanted one, an obvious security breach which revealed that they were Militech after all.  They took a few more steps to the severed head and recognized it as one of the goons they'd seen in the building behind the Tyger Claws base they'd just raided in the last mission.  The agent seemed to have a wealth of information on the crew's activities, but they heard people walking up on to the train platform and got away from the scene before somebody called the cops.

As they left the station, they noticed there were none of the usual transit cops, which combined with the empty station implied that Militech had paid them off.  not that it mattered; their assailants were dead, and at some point the corp would right this whole op off.  After the incident on the NCART, they all splurged on some taxis ($60!) to get the rest of the way home.  Close to a month passed before their next job.  The Peacock spent time with their sisters, and started making preparations for leaving the city with their nomad family.

Paxos spent a week filling out (forged) documents for her upcoming move to Peru, but unfortunately the weak and fragmented administration she was hoping to take advantage of lost her paperwork in the mail.  Flex continued just hanging out around the city, while Jar ran his ripperdoc business to kill time.  Some news broke during their time off: Militech was cleared of all accusations of illegal human cloning when no clones could be found, and Jackie Wu was released from house arrest.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 31: Turned Tables

Characters:

Pat "The Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

Smoke Cloud

After a quick bribe tossed to the local PD, the crew spent two days arranging to purchase some gear on the black market.  At the meet in empty lot in Japantown, the seller showed up in a van with a small crew.  Eddies and a briefcase full of armour-piercing ammo and flashbangs changed hands, but as the seller turned to leave, a sniper took him down with a round to the back.  The rest of his group piled into the van and left the crew on their own, in a gravel lot with precious little cover save a light rain, their own car over 50m away.

The Peacock could tell where the shot had come from, and turned around to see the glint of a sniper's scope on the rooftop of a vocational school across the minor street behind them.  They quickly pulled a smoke grenade from their armour's tactical pockets and dropped it at their feet, concealing the entire crew.  Paxos ran a ping, and with that, The Peacock took aim at the sniper through the smoke, but unfortunately the shot went wide.

The sniper dropped down and crawled out of sight, but the crew were a bit pre-occupied by fully-automatic fire coming in from the direction of their car.  Fortunately, the smoke hid them, and of the torrent of bullets, only a single shot hit Paxos in the thigh, largely stopped by her armour.  The crew ran south, abandoning the car and leaving the smoke and an outbuilding between themselves and their assailants, then jumped two stories down onto a pile of garbage in an alley.  Other than Jar landing face-first, nobody was harmed, and they dusted themselves off and escaped.